Claim: A recent video shows JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman asking religious scholar Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi to move his chair away from him during a media talk.
Fact: The video is old. The incident did take place but not recently.
On 16 July 2026, a Facebook account named Global Eye News posted a video that shows Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl’s (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman signalling Islamic scholar Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi to move away from him. The caption used a hashtag of #BreakingNews, implying the news is recent. It reads:
“مولانا فضل الرحمن صاحب نے طاہر اشرفی کو میڈیا ٹاک سے اٹھادیا”
[Translation: “Maulana Fazlur Rehman had Tahir Ashrafi removed from the media briefing.
#GlobalEyeNews #BreakingNews.”]
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check first conducted a keyword search of “maulana fazlur rehman angry at tahir ashrafi” to see if it leads to any recent news articles reporting on the interaction.
The search led to a news report published by The Nation on 1 April 2017, titled ‘Fazl-ur-Rehman shows displeasure over Tahir Ashrafi’s presence during media talk’. It details that the JUI-F chief visited Darul Uloom Zakariya in Tarnol where an Islamic congregation was being held. The article further states that when he entered a room to speak with the media, he found Ashrafi sitting next to his chair and “questioned” his presence.
“Rehman asked him what he was doing there, following which Ashrafi took his chair into a corner and sat there along with his followers,” an excerpt from the report reads. Since the description in the article sounds similar to the occurrence observed in the video, Soch Fact Check conducted a reverse-image search to find out if the clip was posted online in 2017.
The search led to a video on Daily Motion posted nine years ago i.e. in 2017. It features footage of Dunya News’ coverage which shows the date of 31 March, and was posted by a user named Ayesha Rehman. Moreover, the video features a ticker saying ‘SBP issues Rs50 coin in memory of Edhi’. The State Bank of Pakistan paid this tribute to the humanitarian in 2017, further confirming that the clip is old.
Video featuring Dunya News’ coverage shows a date of 31 March
Top: Video under investigation posted on 16 July 2026, Bottom: A clearer version of the video under investigation posted on Daily Motion in 2017.
From the time stamp of 1:00 till 2:00, a journalist named Shakir Solangi explains the interaction in the video through a beeper. He states similar details mentioned in The Nation article (see above) about the location and event where this interaction took place i.e. in Darul Uloom Zakariya, Tarnol. Solangi also states that Rehman did ask Ashrafi to move his chair away from him, while adding that the rift between the two was probably owing to their religious and intellectual differences.
Soch Fact Check couldn’t trace the original source of the video under investigation. However, it could be traced back to 2017, confirming that the video is old and the incident is not recent.
Virality
Soch Fact Check first came across a viral Facebook post with as many as 128,000 views and
2,100 likes. It was also shared by other accounts on the platform where it garnered 80,000 and 69,000 views via separate posts.
Conclusion: The viral video showing JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman signalling Islamic scholar Maulana Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi to move away from his chair during a media talk is old. The video can be traced back to 2017.
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